2016 Resident and Intern Salaries

2016 Resident and Intern Salaries Offered through the VIRMP

According to the annual Senior Surveys conducted by the
American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) between 2010 and 2014, 47.6% of
graduates from professional DVM programs pursue additional training via
internship (AVMA, 2015). Recent graduates report hope to receiving additional
hands on training and mentoring, as well as pursue specialized experience as
reasons for pursuing internships. A smaller number of these professionals go on
to pursue residency training with the goal of earning additional degrees and/or
board certification.

In the short term, pursuit of additional learning
experiences has a negative impact on the salaries earned by new graduates. Historically,
post-DVM training programs have paid salaries far lower than the national
average for recent graduates.
In 2015, AVMA
reported new graduate veterinarians earned an average annual salary of $70,543.
That same year, the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC)
reported an average salary of $26,572 for interns at colleges of veterinary
medicine in the United States and an average salary of $32,706 for residents
completing their training at a college of veterinary medicine. (AAVMC, 2015)

In an effort to broaden the profession’s understanding of
trainee salaries, the AAVMC has partnered with the American Association of
Veterinary Clinicians (AAVC) to study the full complement of residencies and
internships offered through a matching program.

Methodology

The American Association of Veterinary Clinicians (AAVC) sponsors
the annual Veterinary Internship and Residency Matching Program (VIRMP).
The purpose of the program is to “expedite
the selection of interns and residencies for participating veterinary colleges
and private veterinary practices.” (AAVC, 2016). The VIRMP allows academic
institutions and private practices to submit training positions to be filled
and applicants to submit their applications and rankings to the VIRMP. Program
coordinators review the applications and rank the applicants. Proprietary software
used by the VIRMP determines the best matches based on the rankings and
notifies the applicants and the program coordinators.

This process begins annually in September of each year when the training
program coordinators from individual residency and internship training programs
enter their program information into the matching program’s website (www.virmp.org). Program
coordinators enter detailed information about the positions being offered; the
salary being offered is entered as a free-text field.

In the spring of 2016, this data was provided to AAVMC for analysis.
Prior to analysis, all free text entered salary information was standardized
using US currency formatting. Canadian dollars were converted to the US dollar
using an online currency converter (XE Currency Converter, 2016).
Residency and internship position offerings were sorted by clinical and
non-clinical types; clinical positions were again sorted by practice area.
The position entry data included the state
location and the name of the institution or practice offering each
position.
These data were organized
using regional variables and a variable descriptive variable indicating whether
the practice was located at an academic institution or a private practice.

Descriptive and ANOVA analyses were conducted using SPSS 22.

Definitions

There
are two kinds of residents, non-clinical and clinical residents. Non-Clinical
residents are defined as individuals involved in basic science training
programs. Clinical residents are defined as individuals involved in a
three year advanced training program in a specialty area in veterinary
medicine. This training may or may not lead to a specialty board certification
and may or may not be embedded within a graduate program.

Clinical interns are defined as individuals participating in a one
year rotating or specialty clinical training program in veterinary medicine.
The internship provides practical experience in applying knowledge gained
during formal professional education and offers the opportunity for recent
graduates to obtain additional training.

Summary of Findings for Resident Positions Filled
through the Match Program

The number of first year residency positions offered through the VIRMP
for the 2016-2017 training year was 363; 309 (85.1%) of these positions were
offered by academic institutions in the United States and Canada.
For all listed resident positions, the average
starting salary was $33,262, and there was no statistical difference between
positions offered in academic or private settings.

Resident positions listed through the matching program were most
often located in the South (27.6%) and Midwest (26.8%).
Only 3.0% of positions were located in
Canada.
(Table 1).
Although only 18.4% of residents are expected
to train in the Western region this year, that region offers the highest
starting salary of all listed resident positions at
$38,330, which is $5,000
more than the national average. This statistically significant difference (p =
.000) is likely attributable to differences in the cost of living, including
housing, across regions.
For example, as
of July 13, 2016, residents training in Davis, California will need $4,351 more
in salary to maintain a comparable standard of living as residents training in
Athens, Georgia (Numbeo.com, 2016). Applicants to residency
positions in Canada were offered 30.6% less in salary when salaries were
adjusted to US currency. This is also likely explained by differences in the
cost of living; for example, housing is substantially less costly (26.25%) in
Canada (Numbeo.com, 2016). A breakdown of average salary by region can be found
in Table 1.

Generally, average salary offers for all resident positions listed clustered
in the low $30,000 range. Positions for clinical trainees in Emergency Medicine
- Small Animal comprised the single largest group of positions listed (13.8%).
Although most salary offers were fairly close to the mean, statistically
significant differences were found across practice areas (p=.000).
These differences may well be mitigated by
the very small sample sizes within each practice category.

Non-clinical Residency
Training

It is important to differentiate between clinical and non-clinical
trainees as the salary offers different significantly.

Trainees pursuing non-clinical residencies in laboratory animal
medicine and/or comparative medicine were offered significantly more than their
clinical resident counterparts participating in the matching program (p = .000).
Applicants to these non-clinical programs
were offered positions with an average starting salary of $44,499, while
applicants to clinical residency programs were offered $31,832 or 39.8% less.
A single position listing for a biomedical
research trainee within this Lab Animal Medicine/Comparative Medicine group,
was offered $51,000 or 60.2% more than the average clinical resident applicant,
while other laboratory animal medicine positions offered an average salary of $44,336.
It should be noted that the total number of positions listed for biomedical
research and laboratory animal medicine comprised 11.3% of all positions listed
in the VIRMP for the year reviewed, and there was only one offer specifically
for a biomedical research trainee.

Summary of Findings for Intern Positions Filled through the Match Program

There were 1,180 intern positions listed through in the VIRMP for
the 2016-2017 training year; the majority of these positions (77.6%) were offered
by private training sites. The average salary offered to prospective interns
entering the match program for the 2016-2017 training year was $31,775; salary
offerings ranged from $12,000 to $50,000. There was a statistically significant
difference in the salaries offered to interns in private training sites and
those in academic sites (p=.000).
On
average, interns in private training sites were offered $5,790 more than their
counterparts who are training at academic institutions (Table 3).

Table 3:

Average
Intern Salary Offered

US & Canada

Intern Site

Mean

Salary

Academic Institution

$25,985

Private Practice

$31,775

Total

$30,264

Like resident trainees, the largest complement of internship
positions was offered in the South (30.6%), and over half of all positions were
found in the Northeastern and Western regions.
(Table 4).
Average intern salary offers for positions in the Northeast and West
were also higher than those in other regions; the difference was found to be
statistically significant (p = .000).

Table 4

Average
Intern Salary Offered by Region

US & Canada

Region

Percent of

Positions Listed

Mean

Midwest

14.20%

$28,557

Northeast

26.50%

$31,821

South

30.60%

$29,087

West

25.20%

$33,202

Canada

3.60%

$21,540

Total

100.00%

$30,263

The internship position offerings were sorted into practice areas
for the purposes of further analysis (Table 5).

Table 5

Average
Intern Salary Offered by Practice Type

US & Canada

Practice
Area

Number
of Positions Listed

Percentage
of Positions Listed

Mean

Salaries

Agricultural Practices

2

0.2%

$31,195

Ambulatory

3

0.2%

$26,494

Anesthesiology

5

0.4%

$27,780

Avian

9

0.7%

$27,023

Cardiology

3

0.3%

$35,667

Dermatology

3

0.2%

$28,961

Diagnostic Imaging and Radiology

5

0.4%

$30,921

Emergency Medicine -
Small Animal

94

8.5%

$32,420

Equine

25

1.8%

$26,298

Exotic/Wildlife/Zoo

17

1.2%

$25,822

Farm Practice/Production
Animal Medicine

4

0.3%

$26,357

Food Animal

5

0.4%

$26,840

Large Animal
Medicine/Surgery

17

1.1%

$23,228

Large Animal
Medicine/Surgery (Minority)

1

0.1%

$24,500

Large Animal Surgery

1

0.1%

$25,316

Neurology

22

1.9%

$30,485

Oncology

23

1.8%

$28,397

Other

10

1.0%

$34,185

Pathology/Clinical
Pathology

2

0.2%

$29,692

Shelter Medicine

6

0.5%

$30,224

Small Animal Internal
Medicine

31

2.8%

$31,999

Small Animal
Medicine/Surgery

794

67.7%

$30,443

Small Animal
Medicine/Surgery (Minority)

4

0.3%

$25,388

Small Animal Surgery

89

7.5%

$30,204

Sports Medicine and
Rehabilitation

5

0.4%

$30,152

Total

1180

100.0%

$29,649

More than half of all intern positions were listed in small animal
medicine and/or surgery (67.7%); however, a significant salary range was noted
for these offerings.
Listed salaries for
these positions ranged from a low of $25,683 (18.5% below the mean) to a high
of $31,332 (2.9% above the mean). This variance was statistically significant
(p=.000).

Discussion

Generally speaking, prospective interns were offered just under
$30,000 and prospective residents were offered approximately $33,000 in their
first year.
How closely a training
applicant comes to these starting averages is largely dictated by where the residency
or intern match occurs and what practice area is being pursued.
For intern applicants, whether this will be their
first or second internship also influences the salary offer. A small number of internship
listings (16.1%) required a year of previous internship training or
professional practice to be eligible to apply. Salary offers for second year
interns were $1,375 or 4.6% higher than offers not requiring previous
experience (p=.001).

There are differences in both the number and types of positions and
average salaries listed across the regions. There are more listings for positions
in the South and the Northeast, with positions in the Northeast averaging
higher salaries than those in the South in those comparative areas. Also, it
should be noted that the salaries reported here are
salary offers for those participating in the match program; it is
possible the final salaries may be affected by salary negotiations occurring
subsequent to the position/applicant match as well as any additional pay for
emergency duty.

Residency programs are typically three years in length; this data is
specific to salaries offered through the match program for first year resident
placements. Data collected in 2015 by the AAVMC revealed a 4.7% increase in
average university residency salaries between years 1 and 3 of training (AAVMC,
2015), with first year average university resident salaries being $32,084 and
third year salaries being $33.391.

Table 6

Internship Distribution by Location and Region

US & Canada

Midwest

Northeast

South

West

Canada

Total

Academic

49.20%

14.80%

30.90%

10.70%

54.20%

26.10%

Private Clinic

50.80%

85.20%

69.10%

89.30%

45.80%

73.90%

Total

100.00%

100.00%

100.00%

100.00%

100.00%

100.00%

Residency Distribution by Location and Region

US & Canada

Midwest

Northeast

South

West

Canada

Total

Academic

96.80%

64.10%

92.30%

82.80%

100.00%

85.10%

Private Clinic

3.20%

35.90%

7.70%

17.20%

0.00%

14.90%

Total

100.00%

100.00%

100.00%

100.00%

100.00%

100.00%

As shown in Table 6, interns accepting positions through the match
program will more often have their training experiences in a private clinic
setting (73.9%), unless they are in the Midwest or in Canada, where they are
nearly just as likely to be in a private clinic or an academic institution for
training.
More than one-third of
residents in the Northeast will be trained in private clinics; this tracks
closely with the high percentage of internship offerings in the region (85%). By
comparison, residents participating exclusively in the VIRMP are more likely to
return to a traditional academic environment for training.

When looking within the internship postings, differences can be
found between the internship offerings at universities and private
practices.
Within the VIRMP, equine
intern training is mostly found in academic settings (84.0%) as is training in exotics,
wildlife and zoo medicine (70.6%).
Training in neurology (90.9%) and small animal emergency and critical
care (85.1%) are more likely to be offered in private clinic facilities.

Limitations

The salary data acquired from the VIRMP only represents a portion of
available residency and intern positions offered in the United States. It is
unclear how many positions are offered to new and recent graduates of the
professional DVM program. Because of this, the authors are unable to claim that
this data is wholly definitive of the salary ranges that may be offered to
residents and interns in the United States.

Conclusion

Interns and residents are offered salaries that less than half the
national average salary earned by new graduates. Although previous data assumed
that interns were holding such positions for a single year prior to pursuing
residency training or entering the broader veterinary workforce, a portion of
this population are likely pursuing another internship position with a very
small increase in salary.
Salaries for
internships and residencies are influenced by numerous things including
location, practice area and whether the position is offered by an academic
institution or a private practice.

Acknowledgements

The AAVMC acknowledges the contributions of the staff of the
VIRMP for providing access to the match data and reviewing of this analysis.